Fundraising

Without successful fundraising efforts, your organization is limited in its lifesaving abilities. With the ever-changing array of digital fundraising tools, it’s important to stay current on which ones will maximize your time and bring in the most dollars. These free resources cover the basics from building a fundraising program to advanced digital strategies.   

ONLINE COURSES

• Finance and Fundraising: Two Sides of the Same Coin- This module covering the relationship between finance and fundraising was created at the suggestion of network partners as an extension of what they learned in the Fundamentals of Fundraising digital course.  It covers basic budgeting, planning, and documentation but focuses on the working relationship between finance and fundraising teams (even teams of one) and how increased collaboration between those two functions can help save lives!
• Fundraising Fundamentals- Would you take fundraising advice from a talking cat?  If anyone can put the “fun” in fundraising, it’s your feline pal, Chip, who serves as your guide through our interactive, animated course on Fundraising Fundamentals. You can take the whole eleven-lesson course, created specifically for municipal shelters and nonprofits with government contracts, or check out the table of contents and select individual lessons to meet your specific needs. Reflection worksheets and an action plan template help you apply your learning to your own real-life situations. 
• Related Resources:
  • Field Services Engagement Flyer (English and Spanish)
  • Field Services Engagement Flyer with location fields (English and Spanish)

PLAYBOOKS

• Amazon Wish List- Developing an Amazon wish list allows potential donors to select items you need from a list you create and have those items shipped directly to your shelter. All donors love the convenience, and wish lists work especially well for donors who want to know exactly what their gifts will support and/or donors who want to give tangible items.
• Fundraising for Municipal Shelters- Nonprofit organizations have been raising money for decades, but the idea of fundraising is still new (and often scary) for many municipal shelters. It shouldn’t be. Pioneering shelters like Pima County Animal Care Center have proven the power of donors to supplement municipal budgets, maximize lifesaving and achieve animal care excellence. When donors include individuals, businesses and foundations, the whole community becomes engaged. 
• Digital Fundraising Playbook Series- You may have heard the term “digital fundraising” and thought it meant only social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, but that’s not the case. Digital itself is multi-faceted. It includes your website and any giving channels such as texting, emailing, mobile phone apps, online sustainer (usually monthly) giving programs, crowdfunding platforms and anything else that relies on an internet connection to connect a donor with a charitable organization.
  • Overview- The portfolio of proven fundraising tactics is very large. You have many choices, and a truly great fundraising program is diversified. It makes use of many different tactics, pairing them with the financial capacity and communication preferences of diverse audiences in your community. 
  • Business Continuity in a Digital Program- Business continuity means having a plan to deal with these difficult situations so your organization can continue to function with as little disruption as possible. This playbook outlines approaches to ensure that you can always do the work of your organization, regardless of the disruptions you encounter. 
  • Choosing Images for Digital Fundraising- There are three general criteria for choosing photos that produce the most successful fundraising results. However, your fundraising images should be consistent with your overall visual identity (part of your brand). As always, that identity and brand are determined by your choices about who you want the organization to be and how you want supporters to perceive and respond to your lifesaving work.
  • Choosing Technology to Support Animal Welfare Nonprofits and Nonprofit Allies of Municipal Shelters- In the municipal digital space, animal shelters must often use whatever technology is provided by the municipality or at least the division of the municipality to which they report. Even if your organization is a municipal shelter, you can still be supported by nonprofit allies: 501(c)(3) support groups dedicated to increasing community engagement and funding for the shelter. The content of this playbook, which is focused on choosing nonprofit technology, can still benefit you and your agency. 
  • Creating a Compelling Website Giving Experience- The experience of online giving has many moving parts, including the homepage, one or more landing pages, donation forms and stewardship tactics. You need time and experimentation to get the various parts humming along in unison.   
  • Email Marketing Basics- Email is a huge fundraising revenue driver for organizations, and it is not a difficult channel for municipal shelters or nonprofits to implement. While no statistics currently exist for municipal shelters that are thinking about implementing an email program or growing an existing email program, these shelters should focus on the same key areas to ensure optimal marketing and fundraising performance, ease of deployment and data quality.
  • Ensuring Email Deliverability- It’s getting harder and harder to get into your friends’ and supporters’ email in-boxes. Some reports say that 30% of all email is sent to spam boxes. By adhering to proven practices (both generally and in regard to content) and respecting the bounces, you can increase your effectiveness in all areas of email deliverability. 
  • Facebook Fundraising- Facebook fundraising is a rapidly growing digital revenue stream for nonprofits, with products constantly evolving to meet the needs of organizations and fundraisers alike. To use Facebook fundraising tools, your organization must be a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but that doesn't mean municipal shelters can't use Facebook to raise funds. 
  • How to Make Meaningful Social Content on Any Channel- Social media is important because it meets our basic human need to share information with one another. By creating meaningful, compelling content, animal welfare organizations can reach beyond their existing network to not only increase financial support, but steward supporters, recruit new volunteers and develop trust within the local community. All of these results translate into more lifesaving.
  • Instagram- If you’ve been thinking Facebook should be your sole focus, think again. If you have the bandwidth to post quality content consistently, even if it's just a few times a week, your organization belongs on Instagram.
  • Managing Negativity in Social Media- It may be tricky to manage negative comments and conversations, but they do offer us a chance to address concerns, answer questions and be transparent. Social media is a two-way street and a relationship-building tool.
  • Planning a Multi-channel Campaign- When you're thinking about launching a digital campaign, your first questions might be about which channels to use and how the campaign should appear across those channels. You'll want to spend some time planning out your digital campaign so that you're using the right channels, getting your messaging and timing perfect, and having as much impact as you can with your efforts. 
  • Revamping Your Website- A website redesign might seem overwhelming and time-consuming, but redesigning your website doesn’t necessarily mean changing every single design and brand element. In fact, it can mean simply making functional modifications that help your website work better and that more effectively support your marketing and outreach goals.
  • Top Six Metrics That Matter in Digital Fundraising- How are we doing? It’s the question all nonprofit and municipal animal welfare professionals must lift their heads and answer periodically, despite the daily challenges and the urgent need to move to the next action item. If you want to know how your program is doing, then measuring what matters is critical: You need to measure how you’re doing, and then compare those results to how everybody else is doing. 
  • Writing an Effective Email Appeal- User behavior has evolved over the years around email, including changes like the Gmail Promotions tab and a marked increase in the number of people who read on mobile devices. These sorts of changes have been ominously thought of as the end to email, but the truth is in the numbers: Nonprofits are sending more emails than ever, and open rates and response rates increased in 2020. To grow your revenue, learning to construct an impactful email appeal is worth your time.

You can find additional information on fundraising here.